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Saturday, August 11, 2012

We all deal with death different ways, hell, we all deal with life different ways, yet some prefer to deal with life's dealings without sobriety.

I am a lover of the spirits and on a sober night I had the time to think clearly, to reflect, to really feel what my life is like now and what it was back then until now.

We all choose our insobriety with life, be it anger, alcohol, drugs, spending, denial, promiscuity, avoiding, self depreciating, sleeping around, whatever. And for the moment(s), these things soothe us. They soften the reality of what has broken us, what consumes us. Most of us want to escape these vices yet when faced with our own feelings, we lean on the things that comfort us for the moment, yet moments turn into years and before we know it we are nose deep in our undoings.

When I think on all the vices previously mentioned I am ashamed. Most of them I am not a victim to, yet the ones I have succumbed too stare me in the face daily.

Now I am sure that we can all look up the definition of sobriety and dependency, but definitions don't encapsulate the lives of those effected.

No one can identify with those who are addicted, dependent, or held hostage by the trials of life unless they have held those unfortunate circumstances. The same is true for those who deal with the loss of a child, the only sobriety we have is waking up each day and putting one foot in front of the other until we try to fall asleep at night.

So which should we choose, something that numbs a pain that invades EVERY cell of our lives or the solidarity and the actuality that induces the most gut wrenching realizations and emotions of life? Who wouldn't choose the former? The pain of of living the painful life that has been dealt to you or anesthetizing it to soothe our existence, that is quite the choice.

The easiest choice is to numb the pain, yet where is the healing? The hardest choice is to remain sober in ANY capacity but where is the relief? We ALL want to live life with sorrows numbed yet we all know in our hearts that the only way to get through life we need to be lucid: mind, body, and spirit.

So where do we draw the line? Do we live every moment of the hurt, the torment, the gut wrenching existence that is the loss of a child? We know that our journey is lifelong, only ending when we leave this Earth the way our child(ren) did. Or do we "get by" clinging to whatever can make us take the next step forward without feeling the mud beneath our feet?

It is a delicate balance to say the least. Take grief out of the equation and our vices still have a place to reside, be it due to stress, anger, depression, gluttony, sloth, or mere boredom. Many folks break sobriety in ANY sense as an expression of what others demonstrate as putting their feet up and relaxing. When it goes beyond that and your proverbial self is no longer putting it's feet up, but instead, struggles not to drag it's feet, then the self is left numb, therein lies the problem.

When we get cavities filled, we get mildly sedated to ease the pain for the procedure, yet we don't continue to be mildly sedated after the fact, we get through a period of soreness and move on. For more severe ailments, sometimes doctors will induce a coma through heavy medications in order for the body to be able to heal and rest. Yet once things have stabilized and the body is more apt to tolerate further treatment, the heavy sedation is slowly weaned. In both scenarios, "sobriety" is BRIEFLY interrupted, not carried on for the long term.

Where is this rambling going? Not quite sure, but revelations have been made, connections realized, guilt assuaged, truths unearthed, and life remastered.

As with everything else, moderation is the key. Too much "sobriety" in any capacity including denial and worse, the out-of-sight-out-of-mind mentality, will ultimately lead to one not taking care of themselves and their healing. Pushing forward in full force without stopping to consider our grief is not healing, we need to do things that relax our senses and give us peace. On the flip side, the dependence of ANY vice will only numb what needs to be healed and leave us less healthy and more delusional than when we started. We NEED sobriety, it is only when sober that our thoughts are clear and we can, with firm stance, look into our hearts, heads, and our futures.

Both extremes mask true grief. Both extremes are harmful to our mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological health. Both extremes are worse than grief itself.

Grief is not a cruel master, grief only becomes your master when you let it.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Since I began this journey of child loss grief, I have painfully heard of too many parents and friends who have lost children of all ages. My first encounter was soon after losing Trey, my Room Mom my first year teaching opened up to me about her stillborn child. When I returned to work, I found several teachers that had miscarried. Two years ago, I had a Student Teacher who had lost her first child to stillbirth. Last year, a teacher started at our school who had recently lost her con to Cancer, he was 10 years old. This year, the Special Education teacher in my classroom shared with me that she had lost a child at 22 weeks though he lived for a few days. Recently, a new friend lost her second child to stillbirth only to endure a miscarriage just last week.

Each of these stories, and many more that I have heard throughout the year, have broken my heart, especially as they keep coming. With each sorrowful story, I feel such compassion for these women, yet admittedly, I feel less alone in my grief. Then again, I would rather feel alone in my grief than to hear painful stories of others who walk this journey with me.

As always, music is great therapy for me. This morning I heard "Pictures of You" by The Cure which tells the story of someone who has lost someone dear to him and is mourning the loss. I am certain it pertains to the loss of a partner, but I got to thinking of the many parallels exhibited in the song to the journey too many of us push through daily. Some us never got to see pictures. Some of us store the pictures away, too grief stricken to look at them. Parents like me display them with pride and find comfort in them Yet ALL of hold pictures in our minds of the way it SHOULD be, the way our kids SHOULD have lived and grown up. All we have now are pictures, if any at all.

"Pictures of You" by The Cure

I've been looking so long at these pictures of youThat I almost believe that they're realI've been living so long with my pictures of youThat I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feelRemembering you standing quiet in the rainAs I ran to your heart to be nearAnd we kissed as the sky fell in, holding you closeHow I always held close in your fearRemembering you running soft through the nightYou were bigger, brighter and whiter than snowScreamed at the make believe, screamed at the skyAnd you finally found all your courage to let it all goRemembering you fallen into my armsCrying for the death of your heartYou were stone white, so delicate lost in the coldYou were always so lost in the darkRemembering you, how you used to beSlow drowned you were angels, so much more than everythingHold for the last time then slip away quietlyOpen my eyes but I never see anythingIf only I'd thought of the right wordsI could have held on to your heartIf only I'd thought of the right wordsI wouldn't be breaking apart all my pictures of youLooking so long at these pictures of youAnd never hold on to your heartLooking so long for the words to be trueAnd always just breaking apart, my pictures of youThere was nothing in the world that I ever wanted moreThan to feel you deep in my heartThere was nothing in the world that I ever wanted moreThan to never feel the breaking apart, my pictures of you

Friday, August 3, 2012

On the Angel Steps Facebook Page, I dedicated the whole month to rainbows in honor of our Rainbow Baby's Birthday on July 7th. I found some of my own including the ones produced by a storm in my city right before she was born. I also asked my followers to submit pictures of rainbows.

As usual, music has brought out my tears, which in some ways releases feelings, yet leaves one to wonder when this will all end, which we can always answer in our hearts...never.

I was eating dinner with my family since we always listen to music on random shuffle, I am bound to encounter songs that bring out the sorrow of the situation. It started with a song from Seal then followed back to back with a Sheryl Crow song.

I am almost sure that the full moon effected me a little later than it does other and that this mood will lead to yet another night in the yard.

When I am feeling introspective, I usually sit out on the lawn feeling the grass under myself, the live elements of the Earth, while trying to work through the grieving that has accosted me these last 3 years.

Like I said, the episodes tend to ultimately be healing, they are taxing none the less. Music has always been therapeutic, even from infant-hood...I just wish he could have felt the healing power of music in his short life, if only to continue hearing me sing to him.